The Battle Call

Dalton has Possum Lodge and Caribou Lodge pitted against each other in a mock battle.

Cast (in order of Appearance):, , , , , , ,

Segments: The Possum Lodge Word Game, Harold at the Office, Handyman Corner, Red's Sage Advice, Talking Animals, Adventures With Bill, Famous People In Possum Lake History

DVD: Red Green: Stuffed and Mounted, Vol. 6; The Red Green Show – 1999 Season

DVD Commentary by Steve Smith
STEVE SMITH: We like to have fun with things that are happening in real life. They have these clubs that do these battle reenactments, and we get some mail from them. We see them. We're aware of them. We thought it'd be kind of fun to do something like that. So we took this episode and created a mock battle with Caribou Lodge. And it gave us a chance to wear some outrageous costumes and make some even more outrageous jokes. It was fun, though. I hope you enjoy it.

The Possum Lodge Word Game
MIKE HAMAR: It's time for the Possum Lodge Word Game! {walks over to a table where Red and Winston are seated, picks up a cowboy hat} And today's prize... {looks at hat and then at Winston} Well, let me just say you're gonna need this where you're going.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Arizona?

MIKE HAMAR: Nope, two free line-dancing lessons at the Mercury Creek Dancing Academy! {Winston looks disappointed; to Red} Mr. Green, you have thirty seconds to get Mr. Rothschild to say this word... {holds up a word sign while Winston covers his ears} "Quit". "Quit".

RED GREEN: Yeah, alright, Mike.

MIKE HAMAR: {putting sign on table} And go!

RED GREEN: Alright, Winston, your job doesn't pay enough, so you...

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: ...work hard for a raise.

RED GREEN: You're way off base on this. You hate this job, okay? Think about it. And when you do think about it, you'd rather be doing anything else, so you...

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: ...stop thinking about it so much, just do it to it! You know, suck it up! That's we do in the sewage business, anyway.

RED GREEN: I'm saying this job is driving you crazy. You're getting all depressed. So you...

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: ...seek professional help. Get a checkup from the neck up!

RED GREEN: Oh, man! You wouldn't even need to see a doctor if you could do this...

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Oh! {pulls out a cassette tape from his pants} Get Anthony Anthony's new tape! Oh, yeah! It gives you the motivational boost you need to get on with your life if you're feeling down. {to camera} If your life stinks, don't inhale!

MIKE HAMAR: You're almost out of time, Mr. Green.

RED GREEN: Winston, this word isn't in your vocabulary. I give up.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: What?! That's a terrible attitude! You can't just quit now!

{Suddenly, Red lunges forward and rings the bell to end the game while Mike puts the cowboy hat on top of Winston's helmet.}

Handyman Corner
''{Red drags a huge boat down a road. The boat is covered in shredded duct tape. Some rope is draped over the side.}''

RED GREEN: It seems no matter how much planning you do or how safety conscious you are, something always goes wrong.

{Red points to a red car nearby, which is also covered in duct tape and with boat paddles duct-taped to the side windows.}

RED GREEN: I had this fishing boat mounted on top of my car there. And she was solid. I had put a roll and a half of duct tape into the job. So I'm driving along, up comes the wind, BAM! She's outta there! It was not my fault. I didn't actually aim the boat at that hitchhiker. It was an accident. You shoulda heard the stream of obscenities. As far as I'm concerned, a woman that age shouldn't be hitchhiking in the first place. But I'm thinking this whole roof-rack concept needs a little bit of re-engineering, eh? Wouldn't it be a lot safer and more aerodynamic {leans down and moves hands towards under car} if you could put stuff under the car {moves hands towards car roof} instead of over it? {looks under car again} But as the fat guy said to the phone booth, "We need a little more clearance."

''{Red walks off. Wipe to a later scene. Red is in a field, next to a tractor. He struggles to remove a tire from the tractor with a tire iron, straining with the effort.}''

RED GREEN: Alright, the next step's real easy. Uh, what you need is four of these {taps tire} great big tractor tires. Not that hard to come by. There's abandoned tractors all over this country, thanks to the government trade policies and people preferring to eat food made from vinyl.

''{Red continues to remove the tractor tire, again straining with the effort. Wipe to a later scene. Red has removed the tires and hubcaps from the red car covered in shredded duct tape. He holds up a hubcap.}''

RED GREEN: Okay, I got a challenge here. The tractor wheel isn't actually made to mount right onto the car hub. I got the rim off, took the tire off. Now, the rim fits right on there, but I don't want the rim right on there, I want... I want the tractor wheel on there, so what I need to do is to mount the tractor wheel onto the rim with some kind of an adapter. Now, if you call up your local auto supply and tell them you're looking for an adapter to put tractor wheels onto a 1990 Honda... well, there's gonna be some laughter, probably a visit from the cops and maybe a psychiatric nurse. So instead, {picks up a roll of duct tape} might I recommend the handyman's secret adapter, duct tape.

''{Red starts to remove some duct tape from the roll. Wipe to a later scene. The car is now mounted onto the tractor wheels perfectly with the car itself some distance off the ground.}''

RED GREEN: Starting to get the idea now, aren't ya? {walks over to boat, now in front of car} Now all I have to do is slide the boat underneath there, and I'll be able to carry it safely and easily to my predetermined destination. {pushes boat underneath car} It's not a tractor-trailer, it's a tractor and a trailer.

''{Wipe to a later scene. Red is seated inside the car, with the boat duct-taped to the underbelly of the car.}''

RED GREEN: And it's just that simple. So remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. Oh, I almost forgot, there's another bonus to this unit: I've actually added paddles to the drive wheels on her there. {points to wheels, which have paddles duct-taped to them} It's not just a boat carrier, it's an amphibious car.

''{Red drives the combination boat carrier and amphibious car into the lake, the paddles on the wheels turning. The boat floats on the water, which somehow causes the whole car to float. The paddles on the wheels continue to go and moves the vehicle along the lake.}''

Red's Sage Advice
RED GREEN: There's one question that terrifies all men, even more than "Can I help you find the lingerie you're looking for, sir?". You know, if you're a guy who's lived with a woman for any length of time, she's eventually gonna ask you that terrible question, "Do I look old?". {shakes his head} Now, I know she's told she's always wants you to be honest with her, but she wasn't being honest with you when she that. Okay, so you can pretend you didn't hear her, but she'll ask again, believe me. Or you can just laugh it off, you know? But I say keep that laugh to exactly three seconds. A three-second laugh means, "No, you don't look old." A ten-second laugh means, "Can you say, 'Methuselah'?" And a thirty-second laugh is technically a suicide attempt on your part. Now, the best answer has nothing to do with the question, because the question has nothing to do with the question. She knows she looks old, and she knows you know she looks old. What she's concerned about is that you're gonna be unhappy because she looks old. So when she asks, "Do I look old?", give her an answer that puts her mind at ease, say, "You look perfect to me, honey," or "Not through these eyes," rather than "Don't worry about it, I never look at you." Unless you'd want to be back out there buying lingerie again! Remember, I'm pulling for ya. We're all in this together.

Famous People In Possum Lake History
{Red enters the room.}

RED GREEN: Most people don't remember Roderick Featherstone, and everybody else is working on it. He was this area's gift to the silent screen, but when the bright lights of Hollywood turned their back on him and showed him the door, he returned back to spend out his life here at Possum Lake.

{Cut to a photograph of a small child.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} Born Web Switzer, April 1, 1900, he was a natural theatrical type, so he was forced to leave town at the age of 19.

''{Cut to another photograph, this one of a man about to throw a javelin spear. A woman sits behind him.}''

RED GREEN: {voiceover} He went to Hollywood, where he got sort of famous as an actor under the name Roderick Featherstone.

{Cut to Hap Shaughnessy on his boat.}

HAP SHAUGHNESSY: Nobody ever mentioned Roderick by the time I hit it big in Hollywood. He always played the hero's best friend. He made a whole string of really bad films: "Violet's Tender Condition", "Mustard Kean", "Knee Flappers" and "Don't Tell Mama". But it wasn't until he did a sound film that people realized, he wasn't pretending; he really couldn't act! His last film laid a big-time egg; came out in 1930, a musical called "What Depression?".

{Cut back to Red.}

RED GREEN: After a few years, Roderick was tending chickens back on the family farm near Possum Lake. According to most people, he was having a lot of trouble adjusting back to our lifestyle.

{Cut to Dalton in his store.}

DALTON HUMPHREY: You know, I don't recall he came into my store very much. He'd seen how the other half lived and he still carried himself that way. You know the kind, the guy who wanted to buy stuff that worked. He ran that amateur theater company and he was always after me for years to play Willy Loman in a play called "Death of a Salesman". He wanted me to come see a play, but the title gave away the ending.

{Cut to Mike sitting in the back of a police car with the door next to him open.}

MIKE HAMAR: I remember on his eightieth birthday, they got together a bunch of his old films and they had this big to-do for him at the old film house. And I was working there at the time as a freelance usher. So we helped Mr. Featherstone to his seat, and then they started showing all these jerky, old, black and white films. But that film broke and it took them a long time to fix it, so Mr. Featherstone, he got up and he made this little speech about what a great life he had being a movie star and everything, but that Possum Lake was home, and home is the most important thing. And, boy, everybody was cryin' and clappin' and everything. And I realized that this was my chance to empty the till.

''{A policeman walks up and shuts the door next to Mike and gets into the car. Cut back to Red.}''

RED GREEN: And then he was gone. He never married. Never even had any kids. But let's not forget that the Possum Lake little theater, the government grant players and the still-controversial nude scene in "Our Town"...

{Cut to a photograph of a man holding a cigar.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} ...were all courtesy of the efforts of Roderick "Web Switzer" Featherstone. We'll never see another one like him. At least, that's the hope.

Inside References

 * Red's handyman project involves making an amphibious car, albeit as a side bonus. He more directly made an amphibious car as his handyman project in The Tax Refund.

Real-World References

 * Dalton mentions that Roderick Featherstone was doing a play version of "Death of a Salesman" and wanted Dalton to be in the play as Willy Loman.